Science Names HIV Trial "Breakthrough of the Year"

The journal Science has chosen the HPTN 052 clinical trial as the 2011 Breakthrough of the Year. HPTN 052 is an international HIV prevention trial sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. Two of the 13 HPTN study sites—one in Blantyre, Malawi, and another in Chiang Mai, Thailand—were led by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The study found that if HIV-infected heterosexual individuals begin taking antiretroviral medicines when their immune systems are relatively healthy as opposed to delaying therapy until the disease has advanced, they are 96 percent less likely to transmit the virus to their uninfected partners. Findings from the trial were first announced in May 2011 and published three months later in the New England Journal of Medicine.

In an interview conducted last month, David D. Celentano, ScD, MHS, Professor and Charles Armstrong Chair of the Department of Epidemiology abd principal investigator for the Thailand study site, discussed the success of HPTN 052.